The princess smiled and told him her chocolate-brown stilettos
were "just fine, thank you very much".

"What's it like being a princess?" asked another.

"I am lucky I have a privileged position. I enjoy my charity
work, it's a wonderful chance to highlight problems," she
replied.

And she was certainly true to her word yesterday. Showing no
sign of fatigue from her time on the dance floor at the Victor
Chang Cardiac Research Ball the night before.

After visiting the neo-natal intensive care ward, Princess Mary
went to the cardiac ward where five-year-old Daniel Martin from
Ballina pretended to shoot her with his Spider-Man web.

The princess was astonished to hear the bouncing boy had had
surgery on his heart the day before.

Daniel was not impressed with the celebrity visit. His father,
Niall, said: "He was hoping it would be the Wiggles."

Jerome McCready, 13, from Morisset, met the princess after being
flown to the hospital because he was suffering chest pains at
school on Tuesday.

"She was nice but different to how I expected," Jerome said. "I
was expecting her to be in a big dress with a crown and stuff, but
she looked quite normal."

Cystic fibrosis sufferer Danielle Mitchell, 15, from Quakers
Hill, said: "I would have thought princesses like her would be
snobby, but she is really caring and she takes everything to heart.
She feels what we feel."

Clair Sanson, 14, from Doonside, who is suffering from
depression and diabetes, said: "She asks how we are and not many
people do that. She doesn't look at us and go, "They're sick, let's
go away'."